You didn’t actually address the issue of potential market based on population. Australia covers a far smaller portion of their nation, Russia has a much larger population.

The reason you can’t get a “Vancouver only” plan is that nobody actually wants that. Fido went under, or got bought out, because people wanted coverage in more than just major cities. When personal safety on the road is an important feature of phones people want coverage on major roadways where there might not be a large population.

Thus people in Vancouver help pay for coverage elsewhere. It’s the same, though on a for-profit model, as health care.

As I said, compare Rogers to Telus and Bell, not to countries where we don’t live. Other Canadian data rate plans are significantly more than Rogers’, and they’ve not spent the money to upgrade their network to GSM. $40 on Bell gets you 4 MB of data a month versus $30 for 300 MB on Rogers.

Nonsense.

Virtually the entire population of Canada is concentrated within a strip 100 km wide along the US border. Further, there are just a handful of major cities that contain most of that population. If anything, Canada should be cheaper to provision cellular services! There is no legitimate excuse for the rapacious practices of the Canadian telecom players.

Bingo–the purposeful elimination of competition! Do the appropriate government bodies not give a damn about ordinary citizens?

Besides, something like 75-90% of Canadians live in major cities. Why can’t I get a cheap “Vancouver-only” data plan?

It’s time we start boycotting some of their other properties. Rogers Video, CITY-TV, Sportsnet and so on.

Scumbags.

Nevertheless, until I get a feel for how much don’t-even-bother-thinking-about-it data use actually works out to be, I’m never going to have a good experience using this phone the way I did at WWDC, where a ubiquitous wi-fi network meant you were always on all the time with no limits ever (the way it should be). Of course, that time on WWDC wi-fi was obviously not included on the bill.

By not offering an unlimited data, its as if you went to a breakfast buffet with lots of gourmet items, but every time you picked up a piece of bacon or pancake, you heard a little bell chime and saw a meter increment by your plate. You’d would probably not eat all that much less, but you’d be constantly reminded that the buffet is really just a cafeteria line that looks prettier. Such is use of wireless technology in Canada, thanks to Rogers.

Or they nearly went out of business and now only exist because they were bought out by Rogers.

This isn’t the USA, there are completely different market forces at work here than there are down south. The ratio of geography to population for example skews pricing a great deal more than anyone seems to consider.

“How does this monopoly get away with this?”

Well it’s not a monopoly, there are two other major carriers. That they have not decided to go with a GSM network is their own decision and not controlled by Rogers.

Don’t forget that every other startup that’s tried to enter the market has gone out of business. I know that if you look at rates in the US it’s easy to come to the conclusion that we’re being screwed but the fact is if it was that easy to do the market would not be littered with the failed companies that it is.

The other point made about why they offer a $7 unlimited plan on some phones is easily addressed. It’s because those phones and those plans work in a Rogers WAP walled garden. These phones are not going to be using much more then 30 MB at most. It’s basically the equivalent of kids under 12 eating free at a buffet.

And let’s face it, this is such a first world problem. I mean it’s wireless internet, it’s still very much a luxury item and so we’ll be paying a premium for a few years until it really makes it through to a mass market level.

Rogers has done absolutely nothing good for the Canadian GSM market. Fido had all the “ear”marks of being a reasonable alternative until they were snagged up by Rogers.

How does this monopoly get away with this? Is it because we Canadians are too bloody pacifist to raise some serious hell?

Let’s face it — the iPhone really can’t be used properly without extreme amounts of data. These plans will hurt a lot of people’s pocketbook when the overages start kicking in. With all the apps that are out, the data use will be enormous. Add in the mobile me features, and we’ve got problems.

I seriously wanted to scream this morning. Of course, I’ve also blogged about my displeasure.

If the $60 plan was 200 minutes anytime, and evenings after 7:00pm, I think many Canadians would be a lot less critical of Rogers, but it appears that greed has once again been the driving force between the execs at Rogers.